


A Shared Narrative

by Dr_Madwoman



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/F, a tale in which duties were done, but something lingers, implied past relationship, out of sight out of mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:36:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Madwoman/pseuds/Dr_Madwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha arrives at Downton Abbey for the long awaited nuptials, and Violet does her best not to think on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shared Narrative

It seems that Martha Levinson has always been a presence in Violet Crawley’s life, something hovering bright and brash at the edges, burning garishly in the Dowager’s mind even with an ocean between them.

There had been a blessed two decade reprieve, between Sybil’s christening and Mary’s wedding, when the American woman had not darkened Downton’s halls and Violet had enjoyed a measure of peace. Yet it was merely the calm before the true storm; Martha returns in full force, as bold (boorish) and commanding and willful as ever, and Violet remembers precisely why she had been so happy to see the back of her.

( _Supposedly._ )

Robert thinks he’s suffering alongside her, tries to make a game out of it. He casts Violet long-suffering looks at the dinner table, barely restraining himself from rolling his eyes (an unattractive habit he certainly hadn’t learned from her) whenever his mother-in-law starts another verbal attack on the pillars of English society. For the most part Violet ignores him; though her son is the lord of the estate he is a boy still, ignorant and blind.

She and Martha were linked long before Robert ever married the woman’s daughter. Long before he had ever drawn breath, even.

Violet remembers the fountain, though not the foreign city that built it. She remembers Martha, flame-haired and fidgeting on the rim of the fountain’s basin, keen eyes searching Violet’s face.

They were girls, then, when they met. Violet was abroad with her mother and Roberta while Martha- the untitled, spoiled daughter of some shipping mogul- had been spending her Papa’s money on the adventure she craved. They had found one another at the fountain- Parisian, wasn’t it?- quite by accident and immediately offended one another, and kept their sparring up every time they met beside the fountain.

Martha was easily the most fearless girl Violet had ever spoken to, refusing to back down even in the face of her most withering insults. When she had scorned Martha’s humble origins, her ignoble marriage prospects, the Yankee girl had trailed long clever fingers in the fountain’s water, flicked diamond-bright droplets against Violet’s pale cheek.

_“There is more to life than ermine-swaddled men and their coronets, Lady Vi.”_

They had spent a week needling and cutting and drawing closer, ever closer. Two young women, each destined to shine like a gem in her respective society. Two young women, trading words like sword-blows and alight with joy over having found someone who could dream up cruel retorts to match their own, to have found another who could look at the men who came with poetry on their dry lips and flowers in the their hands and see instruments to be played, tools to be wielded.

Twin flames, those girls.

In the present, her hair gray and her face no longer smooth, Violet stands rigid as Martha embraces her, bottle-born red hair tickling her cheek. The American wastes no time in turning her disdain on what Violet has given her life to building, forgetting (how convenient!) that she had once been desperate to marry her daughter in to the same supposed ostentation that she reviles now.

When Martha sweeps away, though, Violet trembles in rage.

( _There is hurt, too, and a lingering fear that she did not defy the Yank as well as she had hoped._ )

Violet thinks of water dripping from slender fingers.

_“The world’s bigger than England, Lady Vi.”_

_“The world is bigger than America, Miss Martin. And a great deal older.”_

_“True. And both are far too tame to interest me. I think that we shall have to find wilder country, you and I, if we are ever to be happy.”_

It’s folly to be so shaken. Her reign over Downton Abbey was a triumphant one, and through many headaches and suffering she has guided Cora to similar success, molding the Yankee gamine into a Countess, making her as much Violet’s daughter as she is Martha’s.

( _That is a vicious victory, one she wishes she could flaunt more openly._ )

Violet has not failed, and if she sometimes dreams of that final evening by the fountain, if she dreams that young Violet does not flee after kissing the Martin girl, well, that is simply her mind playing games, and is something to be ignored.

She cannot justify to herself why she lies awake at night and wonders if Martha ever did hunt lions in Africa.

**Author's Note:**

> Characters, settings and situations are not mine.


End file.
